Kosher queen Jamie Geller charms during first Canadian appearance
Jamie Geller, the “Jewish Rachael Ray,” wows a crowd of 300 women at a Thornhill synagogue.
Thestar.com
March 6, 2014
By Jennifer Bain
Jamie Geller — the “Jewish Rachael Ray” — is working the crowd at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto synagogue in Thornhill.
It’s her first visit to Canada and she’s telling almost 300 female fans at a fundraising evening about how “a non-kosher, non-religious TV producer” transformed into an Orthodox Jew and “wig-wearing, kosher cookbook author.”
Geller starts the cooking demo and book signing by reminiscing about the message her mom whispered in her ear every night during her childhood in Philadelphia.
“When you grow up you will be . . . the first . . . woman . . . Jewish . . . president of the United States,” says the effervescent Geller, with dramatic pauses.
Cue laughter.
A more serious Geller admits that she was the product of her parents’ second (failed) marriages — to each other — and describes what that disrupted family life did to her.
“I was always on the search for a recipe for a successful life.”
You just know she’s foreshadowing the fact she’ll take the wrong path.
At first, Geller was convinced the path to happiness lay through fame, fortune and journalism. She went to New York University and used her connections to land an internship at CNN’s Showbiz Today (later Showbiz Tonight).
She dove into “a fabulous, incredible life” full of red carpets and celebrities. But, as her proud but worried mom soon pointed out, she had “no husband to show for it.”
Geller started going to Torah classes for Manhattan singles, attended an eye-opening Shabbos (the Jewish Sabbath), quit her live TV job because it interfered with her religious observances, became “a very annoying baalas teshuvah” (a Jew who embraces Orthodox Judaism later in life), and visited Israel.
Then HBO called and asked her to work on The Sopranos and Sex and the City (which Geller refers to as “Blank and the City” since she’s in a synagogue). Since the schedule would allow her to keep the Sabbath, she returned to New York to “have her cake and eat it, too.”
Geller’s hunt for a traditional Jewish husband continued. When he suddenly (and finally) appeared, he came from a family of serious cooks, and warned her on their first date that he wanted to “make aliyah” (move to Israel for good).
“Two weeks later we were engaged. Two months later we were married. Six years later we had five children,” says Geller, who at first resisted a move to Israel.
She describes her first Shabbos, serving a terrible soup to her new husband, wearing four-inch heels, a wig (some Orthodox women cover their hair as part of a code of modesty), size four clothes and full makeup.
From this inauspicious culinary start, Geller has carved out a cooking empire with her fast, fresh, family recipes.
She wrote Quick & Kosher: Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Nothing in 2007. (Her husband’s family had dubbed her “The Bride Who Knew Nothing.”) Quick & Kosher: Meals in Minutes followed in 2010.
She moved her family to Israel in 2012, runs the Kosher Media Network and joyofkosher.com, has her own Joy of Kosher With Jamie Geller magazine and is now promoting Joy of Kosher: Fast, Fresh Family Recipes.
Geller swears she still doesn’t actually like to cook. She makes quick meals that let her flee the kitchen as fast as possible (thus the “Jewish Rachael Ray” nickname, since Ray is also known for simple, quick recipes).
Geller confides that when she now serves a Shabbos meal, she’s wearing $5 Chinese slippers instead of heels, an empire-waisted Shabbos robe instead of size four clothes, and a tichel headscarf (“a sack meets a hat”). Instead of makeup, she has a water-splashed face that’s probably still wet.
She does, however, wear makeup for the cooking appearance, and sings the praises of her Toronto makeup artist. She also name-checks the Jewel & Java Café (she ate lunch at the kosher restaurant at Omni Jewelcrafters on Bathurst).
The crowd eats it up, as they snack on Geller’s hummus, eggplant “caviar” and soba noodles with tofu (served in Chinese takeout containers and made with Wow Butter instead of peanut butter because of audience nut allergies).
Everyone is here to see Geller’s “Cook it Up!” appearance, of course, but also to raise money for the Maddie Leventhal Mikveh Centre at the synagogue.
Jewish women of all levels of observance visit the mikveh to be purified in its waters. They’re required to immerse in a mikveh after a menstrual period or childbirth before resuming marital relations.
An annual fundraiser helps pay for the mikveh. This year, the organizers dreamed of getting Geller. As luck would have it, she was in New York last week and agreed to come.
“We know she has a huge following,” explains event co-chair Lisa Berman. “She’s your role model of an Orthodox Jewish mother and cook who balances work and home and writes her books so beautifully.”
Joy of Kosher is laced with photos of Geller’s family and her personal stories. She offers two variations of each dish: “Dress It Up” and “Dress It Down.”
“Kosher is not tedious, not limited, and not complicated,” writes Geller. “My recipes are authentically kosher, but there’s no slaving in the kitchen (slaving over a hot stove is so yesterday), plus no bubby or rabbi is required.”
Kosher refers to preparing foods according to Jewish law. For example, milk and meat aren’t cooked or eaten together. A fish is kosher if it has fins and scales. Meat must be slaughtered a certain way. Foods like pork and shellfish are forbidden.
Geller’s fascinating back story — complete with a Joy of Aliyah video showing her family’s last day in America and flight to Israel — takes up much of the Feb. 25 Thornhill event (after various welcomes plus speeches from two rabbis).
She insists that her story isn’t really about food or even cooking, but is “about overcoming what you believe to be your nature.”
“In the direction you want to go,” she concludes, “God will push you.”
True to her quick cooking promises, Geller then whizzes through a demonstration, making chocolate bark, hummus, soba noodles, avocado salad and Moroccan chicken in minutes before moving on to sign cookbooks.
The Bride Who Knew Nothing is long gone.
She has become The Bride Who Runs a Slick but Joyful Kosher Cooking Empire.
